Are certain family types more prone to abuse?
For more than 30 years, scholars and clinicians have studied physical child abuse and others have studied family systems. Yet they remain unable to provide an empirically informed answer to these questions. The current study begins to answer the questions set forth above, using the family as the unit of analysis. The current study used the Conflict Tactic Scale (CTS) to measure parent-to-child Severe Violence, and the Family Functioning Scale (FFS) to evaluate family functioning. The FFS creators established the theoretical and empirical stability for five such attributes: Positive Family Affect, Family Communication, Family Rituals, Family Worries, and Family Conflict. The sample was a college student sample of convenience. The participants were 803 undergraduate students registered in 21 different undergraduate psychology and sociology courses at seven universities across the United States and Canada. The sample was predominantly white (92.9%), unmarried (93.4%), without children of
